The Domsten case: a Swedish close encounter of the third kind

It all began on the evening of December 19, 1958 when two Swedish men, Stig Rydberg, 30 years old, and Hans Gustafsson, 24 years old, set off on a journey that would end with an encounter that none of them would ever forget. In a clearing near the village of Domsten, they claimed to have fought for their lives. Their opponents were three or four gray shapeless beings, which landed in a discoid object. This event has become one of the most celebrated UFO cases both in and outside Sweden.

The Domsten case is one of the known UFO cases where the witnesses were subjected to intensive interrogations and investigations in an attempt to get to the truth. Methods that now have become the rule rather than the exception among the world ufologists.

Hans Gustafsson and student Stig Rydberg, both buddies living together at Rydberg's mother's house where the mother was engaged in her laundry business. Gustafsson was helping as a truck driver. Photo shows them as rather good-looking, well-groomed chaps.

The event in Domsten has become a Swedish close encounter of the third kind, which is still turning heads in books and magazines. But there are many questions left to straighten out. Some of the evidence suggests in fact that the event never took place, that the two work mates made it up to draw attention.

But let's start from the beginning. Here is the young men’s own story and judge for yourself:

The time was around 7:30 in the evening (19.30 hours), on December 19, 1958 when the two work mates Stig Rydberg and Hans Gustafsson sat in Gustafsson’s DKW Combi automobile to travel the two miles (3.21 kilometers) from Helsingborg to Höganäs.

The two have just left work on Stig's mother's dry-cleaning establishment for the day and were now heading towards Höganäs to pick up two girls, casual acquaintances for a ride in the car.

But the evening would not end in the way that the two men have imagined. Instead, it was the beginning of an event that will change their lives completely.

After riding around with the girls for an hour they turned back towards Höganäs to buy sausages. The time was just before 11:00 pm (23.00 hours), when they stopped at Erik Wallin's hotdog stand at Sundstorget. A while later, they embarked on a new drive with the girls. Hans Gustafsson was driving while his girl sat beside him in the front seat. Stig Rydberg and his girlfriend were in the backseat. At 2:30 am (02:30 hours), they dropped off the two girls at Kocks Cafe in Höganäs and they drove back home.

While driving alongside the Strait of Öresund on Route 45 and while approaching the village of Domsten, Hans Gustafsson stopped the car near a clearing in the forest so they could defecate.   

It was now 3:00 am (03.00 hours), Saturday morning of December 20, 1958.

The fog has started to become troublesome and just before stopping the car, an oncoming car whose headlights emerged from the fog, dazzled Hans Gustafsson. Visibility was only 40 meters. When the two men stepped out of the vehicle and started to cross the road towards a grove, they saw a light well in the clearing. At first, they believed that it was a fire, but after a while, they realized that the light was not coming from a fire. The glow seemed to be standing on three "legs" and did not light up the surroundings. 

Their curiosity aroused so they walked some 10 meters (33 feet), towards the light. Suddenly they both stopped aghast at the sight of what they both assumed was a "flying saucer" and noticed three or four strange creatures moving about.  

The object's diameter was about 5 meters (about 16 feet); its height was about close to 1 meter (about 3 feet, 3 inches). It rested on three sorts of legs. The craft was self-illuminating, but the glare was neither blinding nor warming. In the center of the light, they thought that a darker core could be distinguished.

The creatures were small and gray; perhaps 1.3 meters tall (a little over four feet) and about 40 centimeters broad (1 foot and 31 inches). They seemed to lack extremities, shaped like loaves and moved very fast. Suddenly, the creatures attacked the two men.

A fight to the death broke out. The beings clutched Rydberg and Gustafsson who tried to break loose. The two young men tried to defend themselves, but they were unable to get a firm grip on these creatures, which had a gelatinous consistency and felt as if they were fighting against a mass of dough. When Rydberg struck one of the assailants, "his arm plunged into the creature to the elbow and the blow had no effect. When the men fought for their lives, a musty smell, like fish, spread in the air. The creatures had a respectable grasping ability and were able to dodge the lightning quick young men’s punches as if they were anticipating their thoughts.

Eventually Rydberg succeeded in breaking free and escaped. He rushed to the car and jumped inside next to the horn. From the car, he watched through the windshield how Hans clutched firmly a pole with a sign that read, "Camping is prohibited" and saw how the gray loaf-men yanked at him so that he was spread horizontally in the air.

At the moment, when Rydberg sounded the horn, the creatures emitted a grayish substance from their bodies and released Gustafsson who then fell plump to the ground. The gray creatures then disappeared towards the object. Rydberg rushed to his friend, and when he approached him, the saucer rose up out of the clearing and headed westward towards Denmark.

According to both men: "The light got more intense at its takeoff and a smell that reminded us of ether and of burned sausages filled the air. But the most remarkable of all the things was the sound. It was a thin, high, intensive sound that you rather felt than heard. When the craft took off, we were shaken by extremely rapid powerful vibrations that quite paralyzed us. The craft disappeared from our sight. It seemed to me that it rose straight up in the sky, but Hans claims that it disappeared out in an arch over the waters."

In his book, "The flying saucers - documents and theory", Gösta Rehn (a famous Swedish ufologist) describes in Gustafsson and Rydberg own words what happened after returning to the car:

"Although our reasoning ability seemed paralyzed and our tears were just streaming down, after sitting in the car for about fifteen minutes, it became very clear in our heads that we could drive on to Helsingborg and not until we were in the center of the city, we dared speak to each other. And the first thing we said was: ‘We should not speak to anyone about this, everyone will laugh at us’".

But when the two men got back to their place of work at Berggren's Dry Cleaning, their relatives reacted to their strange looks and injuries which made them break their own promise.

"We had lots of work before Christmas and New Year’s so I worked overtime", said Bengt (Hans Gustafsson’s brother), who also worked at Berggren's Dry Cleaning.

"When Hans and Stig came back, they seemed shocked and called me into the office. There they informed me what they had been through.  I rubbed their arms to notice how they were red and bruised, and had teary eyes as if they had fallen into some bushes and got hurt.

"But they never mentioned anything about the fight with the creatures. I read about it in the newspapers later."

But Bengt did not believe in his brother's story. When the young men then spoke about the night's events at the breakfast table, they laughed. Stig's mother, stepfather and sister dismissed their story. Nobody believed them.

"I burst out laughing at Stig as he told it", said Anna Berggren, Stig’s mother and the owner of Berggren's Dry Cleaning where both men worked, "Yes, we all did. Everything sounded so weird."

But a few days later Anna changed her mind. Instead of laughing, she now called Stig (her son), to look for a newspaper to report the story.

That newspaper would be "Helsingborgs Dagblad."

The day after, the newspaper posted the story with a photograph on top of the first page. But no word was mentioned if the two were almost kidnapped by the creatures.

And now the police and military have become extremely interested in their story and arrived in Helsingborg to investigate the case. The reason could have been that it was a new type of foreign aircraft.

On January 9, 1959, the police carried out a major interview with Stig Rydberg and Hans Gustafsson at the police station in Helsingborg.

Present during the interrogation were Captain Lennart Bunke, laboratory technician Sture Risberg and military psychologist Michael Wächter.

The interview lasted for eleven hours and two detectives, Ake Fernebrant and Sven Rudolph, performed the interrogation. 

"Actually, we did not leave out anything without asking pertaining to their encounter, but we couldn’t find anything that is considered a hoax", said Sven Rudolph who still remembers the interview well. 

The police even tried to uncover what happened with the help of a hidden tape recorder that was started when Stig and Hans were alone in the interrogation room. But even then, they didn't say anything to the contrary.

"The only thing we heard on the tape was one that said, 'do you think they believe this?', and the other replied, 'Well, I do not know.' "

Three days after the police interview, on Monday, January 12, two Helsingborg doctors, Lars-Erik Essén and Wilhelm Hellsten examined the two witnesses.

Already in the past, the men on their own initiative have visited another doctor, Ingeborg Kjellin, who provided them with proof that they were perfectly healthy. Like doctor Kjellin, these two doctors (Essén and Hellsten) were interested in UFOs. Hellsten eagerly talked about them. Essén was a board member of the Parthenon, which publishes books about flying saucers and their contacts.

But despite the above, a report of the hearing conducted by the Swedish Armed Forces found that both men perpetrated a hoax.

Gustafsson and Rydberg, however, were not through. Concerning the defense staff report, they had this to say:

(1) The defense staff representatives were very skeptical and the investigation done by them was humdrum, routine and nonchalant.

(2) The psychologist was German-born and they could only partially understand him.

(3) No earth specimens were taken for examination at Domsten, although defense staff men ran around the area with a tape measure for a couple of hours - the only other equipment they brought with them was a tape recorder which was out of order.

The above was written and translated from Swedish into English by Nelson C. Rivera (PRUFON)

Conclusion:

I published this story as a wonderful story to read. But even though I’m a firm believer of the UFO phenomenon, this case has those in the Swedish government, friends and family members who have affirmed that Stig and Hans had lied. Despite that, many UFO investigators from inside and outside Sweden have concluded that the story is true.

I know that countless of people lie about seeing UFOs or being abducted for their own personal gains. But as an investigator myself, I also know that there are many cases which are hard to discard as hoaxes. Surprisingly, this is one of them.

To laugh because someone claims that he/she witnessed an alien looking like a blob, mushroom, or loaf etc., is meaningless because we don’t know the actual shapes and forms of other intelligent beings from outside our own galaxy. Why should they always be humanoids like us? Earthling UFO folklore always describe gray aliens, Nordic aliens and reptile aliens etc., with human forms like with 2 legs, 2 arms, a head with 2 eyes, a nose, a mouth and 2 ears.

 I also like to point out why I believe in their encounter.

1) If I lie, I wouldn’t say anything embarrassing like I stopped the car to defecate. Obviously that was their intentions when they stopped the vehicle, which precipitated their ordeal.

2) They had physical evidence (the injuries) on their bodies that showed that they had actually been in an altercation and had teary eyes.

3) Some of the best UFO investigators in Europe, like the Swedish ufologist Gösta Rehn, found them to be sincere.

4) The witnesses were subjected to hypnotic regression that confirmed their encounter.

5) They promised mutually to keep the story between themselves for fear of being ridiculed, and only told their families when they observed them with the injuries on their bodies. It is obvious that they did not seek publicity; it was Stig’s mother, after not believing her son’s story, called the newspapers to divulge it. 

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The attempted abduction of two young Venezuelan men by some hairy aliens in 1954

A text of a telegram sent overnight on Thursday, December 9, 1954, by a writer of the newspaper, "El Nacional" in the city of Carora (Venezuela), announced that, "18 years old Lorenzo Flores and 17 years old Jesus Gomez, both natives of this city and office workers, were hunting around Transandina road, between the areas known as Chirico and Cerro de Las Tres Torres, when they spotted a strange bright object at least 50 meters away. The first impression was that they were seeing a car, but then realized that it was not a car approaching the site".

Flores stated, "After seeing the object from where we were hunting, we decided to leave behind the bikes that we were riding to get closer for a better view. We then observed a round object, which had the shape of two overlapping washbasins (one inverted above the other), of about ten meters or more in diameter and was radiating heat from underneath. The object was suspended in the air at a distance of 80 centimeters from the ground.

"Suddenly we saw four small beings, about a meter tall, exiting from the object. Sensing our presence, the four rushed on my friend, Jesus Gomez, and together tried to force him inside the object. I had no other recourse but to grab my shotgun, which was already unloaded, to rescue my friend. I swung hard at them with the rifle butt, which felt as though I was striking a rock or something very hard because the shotgun was completely demolished without causing even a minor injury on the small being.

"Fortunately, in this scuffle and with Gomez fighting back, he managed to escape from the midgets' arms". The two hunters showed up at police headquarters in Carora with their shirts completely torn to shreds and Gomez had minor scratches on the body produced obviously by the fingernails of the small beings and/or by the branches of the bushes where the scuffle took place. Gomez told police that he, "Could not see their eyes or their long fingernails, but we saw loads of hair covering their entire body. They were four small beings, all the same size, but terribly strong, so we thought we were going to be dragged into their ship".

Flores declared that, "We managed to escape from the small beings and had no other alternative but to run to a distant road about 20 meters away. When we looked again, at where the ship was, it had already taken off. We stayed on the road until a truck passed by heading towards Inlaca and the driver gave us a lift. He assured us that he had seen a bright-lit object go out from where we were, just before twelve o’clock.

"The truck driver took us straight to the police where we appeared to report what happened. There we arrived without shoes and with torn shirts". Immediately after reporting the incident to the police authorities, several investigating officials approached us comprised of: Ramon Gonzalez and Ramon Gudino and detectives Victor Morales, Modesto Suarez, Rafael Ereu and Serafin Fernandez. They all went to the site to make appropriate inquiries and found the site about 25 meters from the road on an esplanade with signs of struggle. There they found the shotgun totally destroyed, the machete, the abandoned bicycles, shoeprints in the ground belonging to the two hunters and smaller footprints similar to those of a monkey, but are not of this type of animal.

They also noticed the presence of a strong odor similar to sulfur in the environment. Subsequently, the two young men were subjected to interrogations and once again, their story was deemed factual as the Carora police chief, Manuel Azuaje, declared, "The boys are well known in Carora as honest decent individuals. It seems very strange that they had been able to invent such a story to draw attention from the authorities". They were later transferred to Captain Julio Chacon, head of National Security (the fearsome police force of the dictatorship at that time) who initially declared that they were perpetrating a hoax and then intensively interrogated them separately; using certain unorthodox methods, which the National Security agents possessed, but could not find anything other than what the two youths initially claimed. Eventually these investigators were convinced that what Flores and Gomez had seen was actually a flying saucer.

This case which occurred on December 9, 1954 (about 10 days after), is similar to another that occurred in the same year, in the same country, with the same very strong hairy aliens and similarly with two men who fought against the aliens who tried to abduct them. As such, in November 29, 1954, in Venezuela, a Cuban businessman named Gustavo Gonzalez and his Venezuelan helper José Ponce bitterly defended themselves against some hairy aliens who tried to force them into their spacecraft. You can read about this astonishing story HERE.

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The encounter of a gigantic UFO by Brazilian pilot Haroldo Westendorff

Introduction:

Most sightings occur with small discoid objects thus with few crewmembers. Occasionally, a large ship conveniently called "the mothership" is seen. This case is emblematic because a "mothership" was seen in midair by a Brazilian pilot and then flew around it several times with his light aircraft. The pilot fled when the giant UFO released three small discoid objects. This stunning encounter between a light aircraft and a giant UFO was sighted and registered by radar at the city of Pelotas airport with several other witnesses.

The Brazilian, Haroldo Westendorff, is not only a pilot but also a gaucho entrepreneur who runs a rice processing plant, a transport company and a pet food factory. In his spare time, he often flies his own airplane and was in one of those moments of leisure that the businessman had an intriguing experience.

The experience of Haroldo Westendorff:

On October 5, 1996, at nine in the morning, shortly after breakfast,

Haroldo Westendorff took off from the Pelotas International Airport for a ride in his light aircraft (Tupy PT-NTH). The sky was clear and sunny that day that allowed a flight with an excellent view. At about ten o'clock, when he was about 15 kilometers from the airport, near the city of São José do Norte and flying over "Lagoa dos Patos" (literally: Duck's Lagoon), he ran into a humongous unidentified aerial object, flying over the island of Saragonha at an altitude of 1,800 meters. The shock was so great that he did stutter for a few seconds. But when he recovered from the shock, the businessman was able to approach the object, where he remained for about twelve minutes carefully examining the ship’s surface to make a very detailed report on the anomalous object.

Haroldo affirms that the object had a base the size of a football

stadium, about 100 meters in diameter and 50 to 60 meters high. He also says that it had the shape of a pyramid with eight sides. Each side had three protruding domes. The businessman remained flying around the UFO at a distance of approximately 100 meters. He took three laps around the craft to observe its details well. It had a metallic appearance, with a smooth bottom. The ship revolved around its own axis heading slowly toward the sea.

During the time the witness remained around the UFO, he noticed
that it did not make a hostile move. One of the most memorable moments of the experience was when suddenly a hatch opened on top of it and three discoid objects came out. The discs left in a vertical position, they inclined at 45 degrees angle and shot up at an impressive speed.

At this time, Haroldo maneuvered his light aircraft to observe the interior of the mothership, which was still opened on top of it. This was when this gigantic craft began to emit some reddish rays through the opening that scared the pilot, which prompted him to move away from the craft. At this time, the huge craft ascended vertically at an amazing speed, without wind, without a roaring sound and with no other physical reaction.

This event makes an impression not only by the richness of the details described by a pilot with over 20 years of experience, but also by the quantity and quality of the witnesses who claim to have seen the same ship.

During the second lap around the ship, Westendorff used the plane's radio to inform "Infraero" (Brazilian Company of Airport Infrastructure) control room at Pelotas International Airport of what was happening. He informed the operator Airton da Silva Mendes that he had seen to the east "a grayish pyramid form object with eight sides, on the horizon." With him were the assistants of port services, Gilberto Martins dos Santos and Jorge Renato S. Dutra who visually confirmed the flying object and together tried to identify it.

Westendorff also contacted "Cindacta II" (Integrated Air Traffic Control and Air Defense Center), in Curitiba, in the state of Paraná, which is responsible for monitoring the skies of southern Brazil. The response received was that there was no record of anything unusual on radar, but could detect the presence of the plane.

The Ministry of Aviation maintains an undercover investigation on the ship sighted by Westendorff. A sergeant of the Canoas Air Force Base traveled to Pelotas to collect the testimony of the businessman and of the Infraero officials. The sergeant asked for anonymity, but spent an afternoon at the airfield where he heard the eyewitness accounts and took knowledge of the episode.

Conclusion:

This case is undoubtedly one of the ufology stories with very precise details of a UFO coming from someone who has been a pilot since the 1970s, and from one who has had a pilot license since the age of 19. In addition, Westendorff is also a two-time Brazilian champion in aerobatics. It is obvious that Haroldo Westendorff encountered something unusual when piloting his light aircraft on a clear and sunny sky, allowing an excellent visibility.

Translated from different sources of Brazilian Portuguese and written by Nelson C. Rivera (PRUFON)

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Alien creatures similar to goblins sighted at Kelly-Hopkinsville, Kentucky (USA)

Introduction:

The Kelly–Hopkinsville aliens encounter, also known as the Hopkinsville Goblins Case, and to a lesser extent the Kelly Green Men Case, is the name given to a series of alleged encounters with aliens beings. These were reported in the fall of 1955, being one of the most famous and well publicized which centered around a rural farmhouse at the time belonging to the Sutton family. The house was located between the hamlet of Kelly and the small city of Hopkinsville and both are in Christian County, Kentucky, in the United States. It is from these main encounters that the entire case takes its name.

Members of two families at the farmhouse allege to have seen unidentifiable creatures and other witnesses attest to having seen lights in the sky and odd sounds.

The event is regarded as one of the most significant, well known and well-documented cases in the history of UFO incidents and a favorite for study in ufology, as many others, including local policemen and state troopers got involved in the case. It was taken seriously enough as to be officially investigated by the United States Air Force. The encounter has shaped much of the narrative of the UFO tradition, including flashing lights appearing in rural areas and sightings of so-called little green men.

It is also claimed that another encounter took place with the same creatures in another part of the United States along the Ohio River a week prior to the mentioned Kentucky incident, which also had numerous witnesses. 

Overview of the Hopkinsville Case:

There were dozens of eyewitnesses to the incidents, which included two families present at the farmhouse and other civilians in the area. Some of whom had no connection to the families in that house and even one in another state. Perhaps most significant, the witnesses also included several local policemen and a state trooper who saw and heard strange phenomena such as unexplained lights in the night sky and noises the same night.

The eleven people present in the farmhouse claimed that they were terrorized by several unknown creatures, similar to gremlins, which have since often been referred to as the "Hopkinsville Goblins" in popular culture. The residents of the farmhouse described them as around three feet tall, with upright pointed ears, thin limbs (their legs were said to be almost in a state of atrophy), long arms and claw-like hands or talon. The creatures were either silvery in color, or wearing something metallic. Their movements on occasion seemed to defy gravity as they floated above the ground and appearing in high up places and they "walked" with a swaying motion as though wading through water.

Although the creatures never entered the house, they would pop up at
windows and at the doorway, frightening the children in the house to a hysterical frenzy. The families fled the farmhouse in the middle of the night and hurried to the local police station where Sheriff Russell Greenwell noted they were visibly shaken. The families returned to the farmhouse with Sheriff Greenwell and twenty officers, yet the occurrences continued. Police saw evidence of the struggle and damage to the house, as well as seeing strange lights and hearing noises themselves. The witnesses additionally claimed to have used firearms to shoot at the creatures, with little or no effect and the house and surrounding grounds were extensively damaged during the incident.

Even years later the eyewitness stories still corroborate considerably when being questioned in private, although speculation amongst the eyewitnesses regarding the motivations of the creatures has ranged from field study on their part, or that the creatures were acting out of mere curiosity or even outright malevolence. The two families involved were known locally as being the type of people that do not make up a hoax. The families obtained no financial gain or significant fame from the incident and fled the area when the incident became known locally and they gained an abundance of trespassers wanting to see the site.

UFO researcher Allan Hendry wrote, "This case is distinguished by its duration and also by the number of witnesses involved. Jerome Clark writes that, "Investigations by police, Air Force officers from nearby Fort Campbell and civilian ufologists found no evidence of a hoax". Although Blue Book never formally investigated the case, they listed it as a hoax.  

Details of the incident:

Location: Kelly-Hopkinsville, Kentucky (USA):

On the evening of Sunday, August 21, 1955, Billy Ray Taylor of Pennsylvania was visiting the Sutton family of Kentucky. The Sutton family home was a rural farmhouse located near the towns of Kelly and Hopkinsville, in Christian County, in the state of Kentucky (the farmhouse still stands today although the Sutton family moved soon after the incident). There were a total of eleven people in the house that night, including the children of the two families.

The Sutton farmhouse had no running water, which caused Billy Ray Taylor to go outside to the water pump for a drink at about 7:00 pm (19.00 hours). Taylor said he observed strange lights in the sky to the west, which he believed to be an unusual craft. He described it as disc-shaped in appearance and featured lights on its side that had "all of the colors of the rainbow". He excitedly ran back to the house telling the others about his "flying saucer" sighting, but no one believed him; instead thinking that he had become overly excited after seeing a vivid "shooting star".

At about 8:00 pm (20.00 hours), the two families began hearing strange and unexplained noises outside. The Sutton family dog, which was in the yard outside, began barking loudly and then hid under the house, where it remained until the next day. Going outside a few minutes later with their guns, Billy Ray Taylor and Elmer "Lucky" Sutton then asserted that they saw a strange creature emerge from the nearby trees.

When the creature approached to within about 20 feet (6 meters), the

two men began shooting at it, one using a shotgun, the other man using a .22 caliber rifle. There was a noise "sounding like bullets being rattled about in a metal drum". The creature, they said, then flipped over and fled into the darkness and shadows. Being sure that they had wounded the creature, Lucky and Solomon went out to look for it. As the men were stepping from the porch, a huge claw-like hand grabbed Taylor’s hair from above. They looked up and realized that one of the creatures was perched on top of the awning. Again, they shot the creature, heard the rattling noise and was knocked from the roof, although it was apparently unharmed.

Lucky and Solomon returned to the house in a disturbed state. Within

minutes, Lucky's brother, J. C. Sutton, said that he saw the same creature (or at least a similar creature) peer into a window in the home. J. C. and Solomon shot at it, breaking the window, whereupon it too flipped over and fled. The creatures could be heard loudly scurrying about on the roof and scratching as though trying to break through. For the next few hours, the witnesses asserted that the creatures repeatedly approached the home, popping up either at the doorway or at windows in an almost playful manner, only to be shot at each time they did.

The witnesses were unsure as to how many of the creatures there although in their first story they claimed that there were twelve to fifteen. At one point the witnesses shot one of the beings nearly point blank and again would insist that the sound resembled bullets striking a metal bucket. The floating creatures' legs seemed to be atrophied and nearly useless and they appeared to propel themselves with a curious hip-swaying motion, steering with their arms. It is also claimed that when the creatures were hit by gunfire in a tree or on the roof of the house, they floated. They did not fall to the ground.were; except for one sighting of two at the same time, all other sightings were of only one,

Involvement of authorities in Kentucky:

At about 11 p.m. (23.00 hours), a state highway trooper near Kelly independently reported that he had seen some unusual "meteor-like objects" flying overhead, "with a sound like artillery fire coming directly from them."

Hendry writes that Sutton family matriarch "Mrs. Lankford... counseled an end to the hostilities," noting that the creatures had never seemed to try harming anyone nor had they actually entered the house. Between appearances from the creatures, the family tried to temper the children's growing hysteria. At about 11:00 pm (23.00 hours), the Taylor and Sutton families decided to flee the farmhouse in their automobiles and after about 30 minutes, they arrived at the Hopkinsville police station. Police Chief, Russell Greenwell, judged the witnesses as being frightened by something "beyond reason, not ordinary." He also opined, "These were not the sort of people who normally ran to the police... something frightened them, something beyond their comprehension." A police officer with medical training determined that Billy Ray's pulse rate was more than twice normal.

Twenty police officers accompanied the Suttons back to the farmhouse and several entered it to assess the damage. The official response was prompt, thorough and according to the police, the witnesses were deemed sane, not under the influence of drugs or alcohol. They were in a state of terror and no one involved doubted that they had seen something far beyond their reasoning.

Police interviewed neighboring farmhouses, whose residents were also distressed and reported to the police strange lights, strange sounds and of hearing the gun battle at the Sutton farmstead. Police and photographers who visited the home saw many bullet holes, hundreds of spent shells and an odd luminous patch along a fence where one of the beings had been shot. In the woods beyond was a green light whose source could not be determined. Though the investigation was inconclusive, investigators did conclude, however, that these people were sincere, sane and that they had no interest in exploiting the case for publicity. The luminous patch on the fence, although photographed, was never collected and had mysteriously disappeared by noon the next day.

Police left at about 2:15 am (02.00 hours), and not long afterward,

the witnesses claimed that the creatures returned. Billy Ray fired at them once more, ruining yet another window. The last of the creatures was allegedly sighted just before dawn, at about 4:45 am (04.45 hours) on August 22, never to be seen again.

Publicity:

The Hopkinsville Goblins Case garnered massive publicity within hours of its alleged occurrence. The August 22, 1955 the newspapers "Kentucky New Era" claimed that "12 to 15 little men" had been seen. But none of the witnesses ever claimed this, rather that the observers had no idea how many of the creatures there were. They could only be certain that there were at least two because they saw that amount at the same time.

Later, on August 22, Andrew "Bud" Ledwith of WHOP radio interviewed the seven adult witnesses in two different groups. He judged their tale of the events as consistent, especially in their descriptions of the strange glowing beings. Ledwith had worked as a professional artist and sketched the creatures based on the witnesses' descriptions. These were generally consistent, though the female witnesses insisted that the creatures had a somewhat huskier build than described by the male witnesses and Billy Ray Taylor was alone in insisting that the beings had antennas. Hendry describes Ledwith's efforts as "fortunate... because the publicity soon grew so obnoxious to the Sutton family that they later simply avoided telling their story and refused to cooperate with UFO investigators, with the exception of Isabel Davis."

As reports reached the newspapers, public opinion tended to view the story as a hoax and showed only brief interest in the event. Some residents of the local community, including members of the police department, were skeptical of the Sutton's story and believed that alcohol (possibly moonshine) may have played a part in the incident, although to date no evidence has been found to support this belief. The fact that some of the witnesses worked for a carnival somehow contributed to the belief in a hoax.

The farm became a tourist attraction for a brief period, which upset the Suttons who tried to keep people away. Eventually attempting to charge people an entrance fee to discourage them. That only convinced the sightseers that the family was attempting to make money from the event and increased the public opinion that the event was a hoax. Finally, the Suttons refused all visitors and refused to further discuss their experience with anyone. To date, both family members who witnessed the event rarely talk to reporters or researchers. However, if they relate what happened, they have stubbornly stuck to their version of the event. As late as 2002, Lucky Sutton's daughter, Geraldine Hawkins, believed her father's account, stating:

"It was a serious thing to him. It happened to him. He said it happened to him. He said it wasn't funny. It was an experience he said he would never forget. It was fresh in his mind until the day he died. It was fresh in his mind like it happened yesterday. He never cracked a smile when he told the story because it happened to him and there wasn't nothing funny about it. He got pale and you could see it in his eyes. He was scared to death."

Ufologist Allen Hynek had interviews with two persons with direct knowledge of the event a year after the event took place.

In addition to Ledwith's sketches, US Army Pfc. Gary F. Hodson,
stationed at nearby Fort Campbell traveled to the Sutton farm with the help of the Hopkinsville police and sketched the creatures based on eyewitness descriptions. The "men" were described as being approximately 3 feet tall and either being silver in color or wearing silver-colored clothing that lit up or glowed when the invaders shouted to each other. All of the witnesses agreed about the appearance of the creatures.

There have been numerous books, documentaries and debates regarding the incidents although no firm conclusions have ever been established.

So-called "Possible explanation":

In 1957, U.S. Air Force Major John E. Albert concluded that the Kelly-Hopkinsville case was the result of the witnesses seeing a "monkey painted with silver that escaped from a circus", and that Mrs. Lankford's imagination had exaggerated the event. The ufologist Isabel Davis, for one rejected this explanation as not only entirely speculative, but also absurd. She stated, "Monkeys are hairy creatures, monkeys have long tails, monkeys are notorious chatterboxes and monkeys struck by bullets bleed and die... no amount of 'optical illusion' can explain a mistake of this magnitude."

Conclusions:

In the beginning, most of the public believed the Suttons were perpetuating a hoax. But, if this was the case, what would be their reason? They made no money from the story, only accumulated debts by damaging their house. Could they have caused all these damages and problems just to get their names in the local newspapers? All of the witnesses of that strange event made sketches of what the creatures looked like. The drawings were practically identical. Almost a year later, the ufologist, Isabel Davis, investigated the case. She believed that the Suttons were telling the truth.

The famed and late American UFO investigator, Dr. J. Allen Hynek, also believed the story as related by both families. This case is still being investigated today, and there have been many books and television specials made relating to the events of that night in Kentucky.

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